EcoScraps’ Dan Blake talks Entrepreneurship with YSA ward; Very empowering; Now we all feel like Steve Jobs

These High Brow Family Home Evenings (HBFHEs) keep getting better and better. Tonight we had the opportunity to hear from the (one of the?) founders of an organic composting company here in Utah called EcoScraps. Long story short they’re a group of young guys doing something really cool in the business world and also for the environment.

Since a lot of millennials have dreams of being their own boss, Dan agreed to come talk to us about some things he has experienced while starting his own thaaaang.

Here’s what I learned tonight:

You don’t have to be the smartest, but you do have to work really hard. The nice thing is, there is no monopoly on hard work.

There are two key principles in entrepreneurship: innovation and imitation. To innovate you want to think of a new way to do something, to imitate, you can do the same thing but it needs to be faster and cheaper.

Think of the biggest thing you can imagine doing, that you want to do, then plan on how you’re going to do it.

If you feel overwhelmed by the process – maybe you’re worried you don’t have enough money or something like that. Think of step #1 – do you need 20 grand to do it? No, then do it. Now on to step #2, do you need 20 grand to do that? No, okay then do it. Keep doing this until you reach the step where you do need the money. This will get you going and you’ll learn cheaper ways to keep moving forward.

Develop thick skin, criticism is your friend.

Speaking of friends, if you’re trying to do something, they’re often the ones who can tell what’s wrong with what you’re doing. Don’t marry yourself to their opinions, but hear them out; their feedback could prove useful.

Find a mentor. Older successful people (for some reason!) love our age group, use that to your advantage and soak up all the advice and information that you can.

He talked about a lot more and you can tell he’s really passionate about what he does. We have HBFHEs on the first Monday of every month. Hope to see you at the next one!